Today's status: I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to murder someone today.
Who? I'm thinking the ENTIRE finance department at UOP!
Here, I'll do my best to sum up the details of what's transpired over the past 8 MONTHS and then you decide...what would you do?
Both my husband and I are enrolled in the University of Phoenix. SD has been working on completing his bachelor's degree and I'm working on my MBA. Because of the extreme problems with the mismanagement of SD's financial aid, monitoring and correcting errors on his student account has become my full-time job.
When the problems first began:
SD was deployed to Afghanistan last summer. At that time he applied for a 90 day leave of absence (LOA) from school. The LOA was approved and SD was deployed.
The LOA was supposed to end on 08/17/08...but whomever was responsible for keying in this date on his account at UOP screwed up and accidentally keyed in his return date was 08/07/08...which is 1 week earlier than SD returned.
So when 8/07 arrived and SD was not enrolled in a new class, UOP automatically returned ALL of the remaining financial aid that was left on his account to the lender...a total of $2,521.20.
Our first notification of the problem:
When SD returned in August ready to begin a new class, his financial advisor told him there was a problem with his financial aid and until they resolved it he would not be cleared to resume classes. Okay, so we waited, and waited, and waited.
Then in Sept. we were told the problem had been corrected and SD was able to begin a new class on 09/30/08. But then his advisor told us that UOP was only able to recover part of the funds sent back and that WE would need to pay the leftover balance due out of pocket!
What???!!!! Ummm...I don't think so!
I take over the management of SD's account and numerous correspondences with his financial aid advisor and the separate finance dept. who processes the transactions. (while my husband is very smart and brilliant at many things I could never do, managing finances is not his strong suit...it's mine). As it turns out, according to our lender the only reason all of the funds weren't recovered was because UOP specifically only requested that $1,744 be returned! Of course, there's never any explanation from UOP on this.
And the boxing gloves are put on:
Yeah, so needless to say, that's not acceptable to me. So I escalated the problem to a review board at UOP to resolve the dispute. Of course, that process is VERY slow and took more than 2 months to conclude. So in the meantime, we were forced to pay $1,699.24 out of pocket to allow SD to continue with his classes while waiting for this dispute to be resolved.
*******That's $1,699 out of pocket...right before Christmas. I don't know about you, but we don't typically have an extra $1,699 just lying around, so picture for just a moment what this situation did to our Christmas morning last year...and the extreme stress levels it provoked during these months.*********
Problem Solved?
Finally, at the end of December and into January, we received resolution to all the problems when the dispute was resolved in our favor, and the remaining financial aid was recovered and reapplied to SD's account.
It was a HUGE relief, and we were so happy to know that we could move forward into the new school year with a clean slate.
Not so fast...
SD continued attending classes in the new semester. But all of a sudden in February we noticed some very strange new postings on his account:
$3,689.70 Returned stafford loans
$2,000.00 Returned SMART Grant award
$592.00 Returned Pell Grant
$6,281.70 Total of new financial aid returns!!!
What the @#%!??????!!!!!!!!!
After many, many more correspondences to figure out what on earth is going on now, we were told that during all the mess that transpired last fall, the finance dept. was incorrectly notified of SD's new class schedule.
You see, during this mess, UOP continually delayed the start date SD was cleared to begin attending classes as they waited for payments to be received. So the finance dept. was told he was out of attendance from 10/28 - 12/02/08...and since that's a period of time longer than 30 days without an approved LOA they automatically returned these amounts of financial aid...AGAIN!!!!!
Here's what doesn't make sense:
There's no validation for how these new returns were calculated. Where did these dollar figures come from? The simple dollar figures make no sense...there wasn't any financial aid totalling ANY of those amounts on SD's account at that time...and there was no Pell or SMART Grant money on his account at all then.
The fix?
Numerous new correspondences happen on an almost daily basis as I do my best to figure out what on earth is going on now...just when we thought all these problems were finally over. And of course, the financial advisor assigned to SD's account last fall is no longer with the company, so I also have to explain all of this mess to his new advisor to bring her up to speed.
It's now near the end of March. Today I received a call telling me that UOP had good news...that all of the returned funds have been recovered and are scheduled to be applied to SD's account over the next few months, but...
Here's the catch:
1. The amounts quoted to us for the recovery don't match AT ALL what was returned. For example, $592.00 was returned as part of his Pell Grant, but now we're receiving $1,744.00 in recovered Pell money?
2. The $2,000.00 SMART Grant award is NOT being recovered because SD has to maintain a minimum gpa of 3.50 to receive this award...and his current gpa is 3.49...which means he is no longer eligible for this grant. It apparently doesn't matter that his gpa at the time of the return was above 3.5, and it also apparently doesn't matter that this whole entire mess is the result of mistakes made by UOP. Instead, he has been awarded new stafford loans that will cover the missing grant...loans that we will have to pay back later, unlike the grant money we wouldn't have to pay back.
3. SD has 4 more classes left to go before he graduates. The new recovery is larger than what was returned and will cover all of the returned funds...plus his upcoming tuition charges for those 4 classes...minus about $752, which apparently we will have to pay out of pocket?!
The Verdict:
At this point, I'm FURIOUS! I've never experienced a more horrific mismanagement of funds EVER in my entire life! UOP makes several mistakes and we're just supposed to deal with it and bear the brunt of whatever they deem they're not fixing? We're supposed to just lose out on $2,000 of grant money my husband was rightfully awarded last year?
I can't even begin to express the total NIGHTMARE dealing with this whole mess has been for the past 8 months!!! I can't even begin to put into words how much undue stress and frustration this situation has added to our family. The pain and suffering here has been extreme.
He has 4 more classes left to go and then he'll finally graduate in August. (Crossing my fingers that nothing else goes wrong) at this point I think our worst case scenario is that we'll end up paying the remaining $752 out of pocket for him to graduate...and then we'll be done with this mess. But is that really fair to us? Should we really have to lose out on that SMART Grant?
This was a huge part of the stress mess that led to my totally bad week last week, where I was so upset about all of this I could barely speak!
What would YOU do?
So, are we supposed to just let ourselves be totally screwed over here by this whole process? Should we be thankful we're not on the hook for more money? How is any of this fair? Does it matter that it's not fair? Legally, do we have a case? Should we consider hiring a lawyer?
I don't know...I'm off to find some dark chocolate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Who? I'm thinking the ENTIRE finance department at UOP!
Here, I'll do my best to sum up the details of what's transpired over the past 8 MONTHS and then you decide...what would you do?
Both my husband and I are enrolled in the University of Phoenix. SD has been working on completing his bachelor's degree and I'm working on my MBA. Because of the extreme problems with the mismanagement of SD's financial aid, monitoring and correcting errors on his student account has become my full-time job.
When the problems first began:
SD was deployed to Afghanistan last summer. At that time he applied for a 90 day leave of absence (LOA) from school. The LOA was approved and SD was deployed.
The LOA was supposed to end on 08/17/08...but whomever was responsible for keying in this date on his account at UOP screwed up and accidentally keyed in his return date was 08/07/08...which is 1 week earlier than SD returned.
So when 8/07 arrived and SD was not enrolled in a new class, UOP automatically returned ALL of the remaining financial aid that was left on his account to the lender...a total of $2,521.20.
Our first notification of the problem:
When SD returned in August ready to begin a new class, his financial advisor told him there was a problem with his financial aid and until they resolved it he would not be cleared to resume classes. Okay, so we waited, and waited, and waited.
Then in Sept. we were told the problem had been corrected and SD was able to begin a new class on 09/30/08. But then his advisor told us that UOP was only able to recover part of the funds sent back and that WE would need to pay the leftover balance due out of pocket!
What???!!!! Ummm...I don't think so!
I take over the management of SD's account and numerous correspondences with his financial aid advisor and the separate finance dept. who processes the transactions. (while my husband is very smart and brilliant at many things I could never do, managing finances is not his strong suit...it's mine). As it turns out, according to our lender the only reason all of the funds weren't recovered was because UOP specifically only requested that $1,744 be returned! Of course, there's never any explanation from UOP on this.
And the boxing gloves are put on:
Yeah, so needless to say, that's not acceptable to me. So I escalated the problem to a review board at UOP to resolve the dispute. Of course, that process is VERY slow and took more than 2 months to conclude. So in the meantime, we were forced to pay $1,699.24 out of pocket to allow SD to continue with his classes while waiting for this dispute to be resolved.
*******That's $1,699 out of pocket...right before Christmas. I don't know about you, but we don't typically have an extra $1,699 just lying around, so picture for just a moment what this situation did to our Christmas morning last year...and the extreme stress levels it provoked during these months.*********
Problem Solved?
Finally, at the end of December and into January, we received resolution to all the problems when the dispute was resolved in our favor, and the remaining financial aid was recovered and reapplied to SD's account.
It was a HUGE relief, and we were so happy to know that we could move forward into the new school year with a clean slate.
Not so fast...
SD continued attending classes in the new semester. But all of a sudden in February we noticed some very strange new postings on his account:
$3,689.70 Returned stafford loans
$2,000.00 Returned SMART Grant award
$592.00 Returned Pell Grant
$6,281.70 Total of new financial aid returns!!!
What the @#%!??????!!!!!!!!!
After many, many more correspondences to figure out what on earth is going on now, we were told that during all the mess that transpired last fall, the finance dept. was incorrectly notified of SD's new class schedule.
You see, during this mess, UOP continually delayed the start date SD was cleared to begin attending classes as they waited for payments to be received. So the finance dept. was told he was out of attendance from 10/28 - 12/02/08...and since that's a period of time longer than 30 days without an approved LOA they automatically returned these amounts of financial aid...AGAIN!!!!!
Here's what doesn't make sense:
There's no validation for how these new returns were calculated. Where did these dollar figures come from? The simple dollar figures make no sense...there wasn't any financial aid totalling ANY of those amounts on SD's account at that time...and there was no Pell or SMART Grant money on his account at all then.
The fix?
Numerous new correspondences happen on an almost daily basis as I do my best to figure out what on earth is going on now...just when we thought all these problems were finally over. And of course, the financial advisor assigned to SD's account last fall is no longer with the company, so I also have to explain all of this mess to his new advisor to bring her up to speed.
It's now near the end of March. Today I received a call telling me that UOP had good news...that all of the returned funds have been recovered and are scheduled to be applied to SD's account over the next few months, but...
Here's the catch:
1. The amounts quoted to us for the recovery don't match AT ALL what was returned. For example, $592.00 was returned as part of his Pell Grant, but now we're receiving $1,744.00 in recovered Pell money?
2. The $2,000.00 SMART Grant award is NOT being recovered because SD has to maintain a minimum gpa of 3.50 to receive this award...and his current gpa is 3.49...which means he is no longer eligible for this grant. It apparently doesn't matter that his gpa at the time of the return was above 3.5, and it also apparently doesn't matter that this whole entire mess is the result of mistakes made by UOP. Instead, he has been awarded new stafford loans that will cover the missing grant...loans that we will have to pay back later, unlike the grant money we wouldn't have to pay back.
3. SD has 4 more classes left to go before he graduates. The new recovery is larger than what was returned and will cover all of the returned funds...plus his upcoming tuition charges for those 4 classes...minus about $752, which apparently we will have to pay out of pocket?!
The Verdict:
At this point, I'm FURIOUS! I've never experienced a more horrific mismanagement of funds EVER in my entire life! UOP makes several mistakes and we're just supposed to deal with it and bear the brunt of whatever they deem they're not fixing? We're supposed to just lose out on $2,000 of grant money my husband was rightfully awarded last year?
I can't even begin to express the total NIGHTMARE dealing with this whole mess has been for the past 8 months!!! I can't even begin to put into words how much undue stress and frustration this situation has added to our family. The pain and suffering here has been extreme.
He has 4 more classes left to go and then he'll finally graduate in August. (Crossing my fingers that nothing else goes wrong) at this point I think our worst case scenario is that we'll end up paying the remaining $752 out of pocket for him to graduate...and then we'll be done with this mess. But is that really fair to us? Should we really have to lose out on that SMART Grant?
This was a huge part of the stress mess that led to my totally bad week last week, where I was so upset about all of this I could barely speak!
What would YOU do?
So, are we supposed to just let ourselves be totally screwed over here by this whole process? Should we be thankful we're not on the hook for more money? How is any of this fair? Does it matter that it's not fair? Legally, do we have a case? Should we consider hiring a lawyer?
I don't know...I'm off to find some dark chocolate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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